How to Survive a Plague: New Documentary on AIDS

Published Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Using powerful
and deeply moving interviews as well as never-before-seen footage, How to Survive a Plague is a riveting
new documentary that offers extraordinary insights into the history of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. The documentary, in theaters September 21 and
subsequently available On Demand from Sundance Selects, tells the story of the
courageous young activists behind ACT-UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power)
and the Treatment Action Group (TAG).

Among
the film’s protagonists is Peter Staley, a former amfAR trustee and
recipient of amfAR’s Award of Courage in 2000.
A successful Wall Street bond trader, Staley was diagnosed with “AIDS-related
complex” at the age of 24 and given less than two years to live. In 1987 he joined ACT-UP, and later went on
to be one of the co-founders of TAG alongside Mark Harrington and others.

Directed
by David France, a journalist who has been covering the epidemic since 1982, How to Survive a Plague has been hailed
as “…an epic celebration of heroism and tenacity,” by The Hollywood Reporter, and as “…the first documentary [that I have
seen] that does justice to this story of a civil rights movement rising from
the ashes of our dead,” by Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Beast.